


the rental property

by Molly



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M, Popslash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In which Lance's house undergoes major renovations and emergency rezoning at the hand of a slightly lower power.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	the rental property

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Don't Ask Me Why](http://www.anyroad.org/dontaskmewhy.htm) Challenge. Many many thanks to Mia, Giddy, torch, Ceili, Rhys, Betty, and Pet for reading it a dozen jillion times in the course of two days, and to anybody I may have grabbed to read it after midnight. I'm also in debt to Mark Z. Danielewski for permanently warping my sense of creepy, much of which I have lifted clumsily from House of Leaves and the rest of which I have lifted with equal lack of grace from almost every b-grade horror movie, ever.

Lance didn't really believe his house was haunted until his roommates moved out at 3 am on a chilly Tuesday morning, stuffed suitcases trailing clothes from the cracks, rent checks blowing like leaves across the kitchen table. He stood on the sidewalk and watched them drive off into the sweet southern California night-- two BMWs and a Ford Aerostar, low beams cutting like knives through the shifting fog. He was bleeding from a cut over his eye and his shirt was torn, sliced through across his left shoulder. He'd called Chris while he watched his friends pack; his hands had shaken so hard he could barely work the speed dial.

They were still shaking. He made fists and shoved them deep into his pockets, but he felt the trembling along his spine anyway. He stood and waited.

Ten minutes later, another set of beams slid around the corner and pulled up into the driveway. The lights went off, a door slammed, and a voice said, "Lance?"

"Did you bring it?"

Footsteps pitter-patted up the walk. Something crashed, and Chris's disembodied voice said, "Fuck! Ow! Fuck! I think I just killed a geranium."

Lance walked out to Chris as fast as he could walk without having to call it running. He could feel the house looming behind him in the dark. "Man, I am so glad you're here." He wrapped his arms around Chris tight and breathed into his shoulder.

"Hey." Chris's hand came up and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "Um. Hey. Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Lance pushed back and ran his hand through his hair, letting his eyes soak up Chris in all his normal, mundane glory. He looked rumpled and confused, outlined in the yellow light from Lance's kitchen, wearing jeans and flipflops and a black t-shirt with Justin's head on it. Half-scared out of his mind, Lance still had to roll his eyes.

"You sure?"

"I am now. I'm fine. How'd you get here so fast?"

"You've had me hanging out in a hotel room on spooky-standby for a week now. If something didn't happen soon I was gonna come over and haunt the place myself. Ow, damn it, ow! My toe. Why couldn't I have just stayed here? Down the hall is a lot closer than the Sheraton."

"Trust me, you're glad you didn't sleep here tonight." He threw a glance over his shoulder. "Did you bring the stuff?"

"I brought -- Jesus." Chris leaned in and peered at Lance's head. "Are you bleeding?"

He brought his hand up to his forehead; it came away sticky and dark. "Kind of. Not so much now."

Chris's eyes drifted up to the house. Lance looked, too; so normal, bright yellow windows, bright yellow rectangle of door. "What the hell happened here, Lance?"

"I told you," Lance said evenly.

"But."

"But, you didn't believe me."

"Well." Chris looked at the house, then back at Lance again. "I didn't exactly not believe you..."

Lance sighed. "Did you bring the stuff?"

"I brought it." Chris pushed past him, onto the front porch. "I brought all of it. Are we going in?"

Lance looked at the door uncertainly.

"Lance," Chris said softly. "If you don't tell me what's going on and we don't go in--"

"No." It was fine; Chris was here, everything would be fine. "It's okay. I want to deal with this." He straightened his back and headed up the steps. "Let's go in."

The inside of the house was ten degrees colder. Lance told himself it was the air conditioning and tried not to think too much about it. The chair that had clipped his head was sitting alone in the center of the kitchen floor, still and innocent. Lance kept his eye on it and pulled Chris over to the far side of the counter.

"Where's Jackson?"

"Freddy's got him."

"See, right there. That's a lot scarier than this," Chris said, and grinned when Lance glared and smacked the side of his head.

Lance grabbed the gym bag Chris had brought and started pulling stuff out. A crucifix, a Bible, a wreath of garlic, a box of bullets, a gun, and a fifth of vodka. Sweet Jesus, yes, that was what he wanted. Lance tipped the bottle to his mouth before Chris could stop him, then spit a mouthful of wrongness into the sink. "Gah. What the--"

"It's holy water, you doofus. I didn't have anything else to put it in."

"Where'd you get it? It tastes like seawater."

"Church."

"You broke into a church? Chris!"

"I didn't break in, I was let in. There's a 24-hour Unitarian Universalist church just down the block from the hotel, I got a guy there to bless it."

"A guy?" Lance frowned. "A random guy?"

"He had a certificate," Chris snapped. "What do you want from me?"

"Okay, okay. Sorry. What's the gun for?"

"Werewolves."

"So the bullets are--"

"Hollow points. Trust me, they'll work."

Lance nodded, and looked over the collection. He didn't know what good it would do, but at this point anything could turn out useful. Maybe not the gun, because as long as he didn't shoot up the furniture he could still hope he wouldn't get sued for breaking his lease. "I think this should cover it, then. You got pretty much the whole spectrum. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, demons, poltergeists...hey, did you bring anything for pixies? I saw this movie that had pixies once--"

"No," Chris said solemnly. "If it's pixies, we die."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Lance showed Chris his bedside table, where the glass of water had gone missing in the night, and the dresser, where it had reappeared two days later. He showed him the shattered mirror, the overturned chair, the seeping black stain on the carpet on the far side of the bed. He didn't know what it was and he didn't know where it came from. Chris didn't seem inclined to touch it, and Lance was inclined to support Chris in that choice. He didn't show Chris the closet because he didn't want to freak him out too much right off the bat. Mostly he was just glad the door had finally stopped glowing.

"So," he said. He thought the room pretty much spoke for itself. "What do you think?"

Chris's eyebrows went up, and he whistled. "Dude. What did you have to kill to make that bedspread?"

Lance shoved Chris at the table. "Shut up. We're talking about the ... manifestations. And the property damage."

"Was it one big furry thing, or lots of little furry things?"

"Shut _up_."

Chris rapped on the bedside table with his knuckles, moved a lamp, and pulled out a drawer. "Ah."

"What?"

Chris held up a plastic case. "Found your Pink Floyd CD."

Lance grabbed it from him and popped it open. "Aha! Look! It's scratched!"

Chris sat down on the edge of the bed. It had a lot of spring to it. Chris bounced a few times while Lance grinned at him triumphantly, then said, "Lance."

"What?"

"Your house isn't haunted."

"No, it is."

"It isn't."

"It is, too! Damn it, Chris, why do you think I called you out here?"

Chris bounced a bit more on the bed. "Cause you don't know how to tell me how bad you want my lithe and sexy bod?"

Lance huffed out a breath, almost a snort. "Lithe?"

"Okay, look." Chris stood up and went to Lance. He put his hands on Lance's shoulders. "I love you, you know I love you, and you know I at least pretend to believe almost everything you say, even when I know for a fact you're lying. But."

"Chris --"

"There's no ghost here. There's no such thing as ghosts. I bet you a million dollars there was some kind of wild, kinky party, and Freddy screwed up your stuff, and now he's too freaked out to say anything. I'll bet he borrowed your CD without asking and scratched it, and didn't want to tell you. Two million, see, that's how sure I am."

Looking Chris square in the eye and putting every ounce of sincerity he possessed into it, Lance said, "Chris, as God is my witness, I'm telling you, this house is haunted."

"Maybe you got drunk and had a party. And then you blacked out, and forgot."

"Haunted, Chris. H-A-U-N--"

"It isn't!"

"Is!"

"Okay, you need help. I know a guy. We can call him right --"

The lights went out.

"...now?"

Lance stood very, very still in the darkness. Chris's fingers had turned into claws wrapped around his shoulders. He put his arms around Chris's waist and pulled him closer. "Don't let go."

"That ain't gonna be a problem. I may have to be surgically removed."

Lance held on tighter. "Okay. It's just, um. A circuit blew, or something."

"You think?"

"No, I think it was a ghost. I was trying to be comforting." Lance rubbed at Chris's back awkwardly. "Hey, you know, I called you so you could protect _me_."

"Right." Chris took a deep breath. "Right." He pushed himself back. "So. I guess we need a flashlight."

Lance grabbed at Chris's hand, missed, found it. "There's one in the drawer."

"Right. Go get it."

"You go get it."

"It ain't my house, Bass."

"Fine, okay? Fine. We'll go together."

It was only ten steps, but Lance couldn't see his hand in front of his face. There were windows all over so there should have been some light from outside, but it was like a heavy black blanket had been settled down over the house. He could hear Chris's breath behind him, right by his shoulder, as they crept around the foot of the bed; everything else was silence.

After ten steps, Lance started to worry. After twenty, he stopped. Chris bumped into him, hissed, "Ow, fuck, my _toe_," and poked Lance in the ribs. "Signal, dude. Geez."

"Chris."

"What? No flashlight?"

"Um." Lance took a deep breath. He squeezed Chris's hand; it was warm and sweaty in his grasp. "No table."

  
   


* * *

  
   


They backtracked, or at least Lance thought they backtracked. They turned around and at what Lance thought was 180 degrees they started walking again. They took the twenty steps and then twenty more steps, and there wasn't any dresser or wall or door or really, anything.

Chris stopped suddenly, and Lance didn't know it until he didn't have Chris's hand anymore. He whirled around, blind and lost, shouting, "Chris!" and his voice didn't echo because there wasn't anything to bounce off of, "Chris!"

"Hey, hey, I'm right here." Chris walked right into him, put his hands on Lance's arms and held on. "Sorry, I'm right here."

"Fuck." Lance heard his voice break and swallowed; his throat was completely dry. "Fuck, don't do that."

"It's just. We don't know where we are. We don't even know if we're going the right way."

"Okay." Lance just stood there and breathed. "Yeah. Okay."

"You didn't buy any old wardrobes from England recently, did you?"

Lance choked out a ragged laugh. "No."

"Just trying to rule stuff out."

"Don't let go of my hand again."

Chris wrapped himself around Lance clumsily. "I won't let go."

  
   


* * *

  
   


The funny part, Lance thought, in one of the few moments he was calm enough to find anything funny, was the floor. That was all they had, each other and the endless floor in all directions, and it was carpeted in the same thick, soft carpet as his bedroom. He made Chris stop so he could kneel down and touch it to be sure. It was springy and warm.

They walked forever, or maybe about an hour. It wasn't uncomfortable. He didn't feel tired, and the air wasn't too warm or too cold. They didn't say much, but Chris had his hand like a lifeline. Lance tried not to think. He was doing pretty well, running their albums in his head and singing his own parts out loud, when Chris said, "Ow!" in a surprised, pained voice, and fell down.

"Chris?!"

"I think I broke it this time."

"Aw, baby. You want me to check?"

"Touch my foot and I'll bite your hand off. I'll be fine. Just. Fucking _ow_."

"Did you trip?"

"No." Chris's hands touched Lance's cheeks, and a smile pressed against his mouth. "Ran into a wall."

  
   


* * *

  
   


It went up higher than they could reach, even with Chris on Lance's shoulders, smooth all the way down to the carpet. There was no wainscoting and no baseboard, but every twenty feet or so there was an electrical outlet, ten inches from the floor. Lance ran his fingers over one, tried to pry it off, but it wouldn't budge. He didn't think he wanted to know what was behind it, anyway.

He was up to Selfish when his hand curved around something cool and round and smooth. He gripped it, twisted his hand, and light spilled in through the doorway. In a heartbeat he was through, dragging Chris through, slamming the door shut behind him.

They collapsed onto the floor of the hallway, a heap of arms and legs gasping for breath and struggling to hold on tighter. Lance twisted so Chris was between his legs, back pressed up against his chest, and wrapped himself around Chris like a blanket. He thought he might be ready to let go sometime next year.

Chris laid his arms over Lance's arms and squeezed them. "Okay," he said quietly. "So."

"Yeah."

Chris tilted his head back. "Lance..."

"Yeah?"

"I think your house might be haunted."

  
   


* * *

  
   


They had fifty yards of nylon rope, which Chris kept in the trunk of his car for reasons Lance hoped would remain unknown to him. They tied one end to Chris's bumper and the other end to Lance. It made sense for Lance to be the one to go in, Lance told Chris, because it was Lance's house and therefore Lance's problem.

"That only makes sense," Chris said calmly, "if you're insane. Are you listening to me? In. _sane_."

"Chris," Lance promised, "I guarantee you. When we get out of here, there's a whole lot of therapy in my future."

They stood at the door to Lance's bedroom, Lance loaded down with a flashlight and extra batteries and the gun and the garlic and the crucifix. The stakes were slung over his shoulder in a backpack and the Bible was tucked in with them. The rope was wrapped around his waist three times, crossed over his chest and run over both shoulders.

Chris yanked at the rope, testing its strength. "I really don't like this."

Lance shook his head. "Go wait in the kitchen."

"I should get a say in this. What did you bring me here for if you were gonna go all Rambo while I sit around and wring my hands? I flew all the way in from Florida, I picked up your little totebag of Buffy memorabilia, I got myself righteously haunted, and I'm not gonna just stand by while you go into the light, or whatever. Dude, if you were just gonna blow me off, I could've just stayed in Orlando."

"Well, I didn't bring you out here to go in there, not when it's all," Lance waved his hand at the door, "I don't know, all Ghostbusters. Whatever. Besides, we don't have enough rope for us both to go."

"I don't want to go. I don't want you to go, either, but failing both of those things I'm not letting you go by yourself." Chris waggled his eyebrows and grinned. "You can hang onto me really, really tight."

"Nope." Lance pushed Chris gently away from the door. "We don't always get what we want in this world."

"You know what I have to wonder?" Chris bounced a little and grinned. "I have to wonder how you think you're gonna stop me. Because the only way for you to get in there is to leave me alone out here, and if you leave me alone out here I'm going after you. Logic, my boy. Did bus school teach you nothing?"

"Chris. You can't. Look, you just can't, okay? I need you to stay out here. Like, in case."

"In case what?" Chris asked sharply, but Lance wasn't falling for that.

"Just in case. Please." He looked Chris in the eye and touched his wrist, slid his fingers down into Chris's hand. "Please stay out here."

Chris blew out a puff of air and looked away. "Fuck you, Bass, seriously. I should've stayed home."

Lance looked at his feet and mumbled, "You were bored at home."

"I was -- who says I was bored? I was fine. I lived a very full and happy life that wasn't in danger from anything scarier than overly enthusiastic teenagers, and not even all that many of those any more. I was fine."

Lance looked up. "You were bored, okay? I had this thing, and I knew you'd think it was cool, and what are you doing down there, anyway? Clubs all night, sleeping all day? That's not a life, Chris. I just thought, you know, you'd be interested. But you didn't sign up for this -- this. It's my house, it's my problem."

Chris's brow wrinkled. "I was bored?"

"You seemed bored."

Chris frowned harder. "So you were, like. You were rescuing me?"

"Sort of."

"From the booze and the pretty boys and the slutty women."

Lance wondered if he could just melt through the door, just by wanting to. "Yeah."

"'Cause that's nothing like the deep and meaningful lifestyle you've been perfecting out here in Hollywood."

Lance's face flushed with heat. "Okay, shut up."

Chris broke into a huge, toothy smile. "Man, that is the sweetest thing I ever heard. Dork. You should stay here with me, and then we can talk about it. Why didn't you just say so?" He laid his hand on Lance's shoulder, on the side of his neck, really, and stroked gently over Lance's skin. His fingers were warm. "We could maybe, kind of, rescue each other. Or something. If you wanted."

"I just said so. We -- wait. We could?" Lance bit his lower lip and looked at Chris really close. He looked really sincere and when Lance smiled, Chris took a step closer and that was nice. That was really nice. "Could we still, after?"

"I should tell you, 'no way, I don't hook up with morons'." Chris tapped Lance on the nose. "This is stupid. For the record? This is really dumb."

"Which part?"

"Probably all of it," Chris said, smiling just a little. Just half-way. "You sure you have to do this? You know I'm not leaving this spot without you, right? Just so we're clear."

Lance reached out and put his hands on Chris's face, trailing his fingers down over his jaw, down to his throat. For a second he thought about squeezing; once Chris was unconscious Lance could haul him out to the car and drive him someplace safe, some nice hotel with bright lights and room service and no supernatural history whatsoever. He couldn't help but think this would all be a lot easier if Chris would just wait for him in the kitchen.

"Gonna smooch me goodbye?" Chris tilted his face up, batting his lashes.

"Yep."

Chris's eyes widened and he said, "Um," and that's where Lance stopped him, kissed him with an open mouth and all his heart until Chris relaxed and opened up and moaned, just a little, just enough. His hands came up to Lance's arms and pulled him close and Lance backed him up, pressed him against the wall.

"Stay out here," Chris said into Lance's mouth. "Stay."

Lance groaned, and pulled back. "That's not fair."

Chris shrugged, smiling.

"At least stand back from the door. I'll be right back, and we'll go to the kitchen--"

"A hotel--"

"--whatever, we'll go, and we'll, um..."

Lance stared at Chris's lips. Chris smiled wider. "Hmmmm?"

"We'll."

Chris pressed his hips against Lance, let his eyes flutter closed. "Yeah."

"Fuck," Lance said, "okay, um, just for a minute--"

Chris moved up and in, snapped lightly at Lance's lower lip with his teeth and then licked over it, opened Lance's mouth. "You taste," Chris said, and "wow", and "could you move your hand -- yeah, that's" and Lance stopped listening because this was good, it was great, it was his very best idea ever.

It kept being a great idea until Chris pulled back from it, kissed him softly on closed lips one last time, and said, "I'm staying right here."

Lance dropped his face into his hands and groaned. "Chriiiiiis..."

Chris whapped him on the arm. "You think you can sex me up a little and change my mind just like that? I thought you knew me, Lance." He turned on the sad eyes and stared.

"It wasn't just about that!"

"Not that it wasn't a nice try..."

"It wasn't about that!" Lance whined a little, knew he was whining, and hated himself for it. "I really like you."

"Good." Chris stepped back. "Get this over with, okay? We've got stuff to talk about."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Lance stood beside Chris in the open doorway, staring. After a second, Chris fumbled for Lance's hand and caught it. He held on tight.

"Is." Lance squeaked a little and cleared his throat. "That's."

"There's. I don't think there's a floor, Lance," Chris said tightly. "I don't think there's anything."

"There's not."

A sound like nothing Lance had ever heard drifted up out of the black. It was high and painful, torn, with a bass note like continents rubbing together.

Chris pressed closer to Lance's side. "You're not going in there."

"Nope." Lance smelled smoke, and fire. In the depths of his bedroom, so deep it made Lance dizzy, something was starting to burn.

"Good, then." Chris's voice cracked, just a little. "Okay, good." He didn't move.

Lance pulled Chris back from the ledge. "Close the door."

  
   


* * *

  
   


They waited on the steps at first. It seemed safe until something started knocking from the wrong side of the door. After that they waited at the end of the driveway in Chris's car. With both doors locked, and the engine running.

It wasn't that cold, but they squished up tight next to each other and Lance liked that so much the temperature didn't really matter. They hadn't really wanted to try any of the other doors, so Chris had on two pairs of socks from the dryer. For this one time only, Lance was glad he never remembered to take his clean laundry back to his room.

"We could just go," Chris said reasonably. "You can buy a new laptop."

"It's not about my laptop."

"Is it the creature-feature on your bed? Cause I gotta tell you, Lance, you were never gonna get me under that thing anyway."

Lance grinned, and leaned up against Chris's side. Chris slid an arm around Lance's waist, warm and snug.

"Is it the guy thing?" Chris said quietly. "I'm convinced of your manliness. I want you to have a chance to vindicate that conviction."

"Nope. Hey, you were all gung ho to go with me before, what happened?"

"I was putting up a good front. My sense of adventure hit its sell-by date about the time your house ate your bedroom."

"It's not that I want to go. I just have to." Lance fumbled around in his head for the right words, the right way to say it. Something was pulling him back in there. It wasn't for anything or about anything, it was just that it wasn't over. He had to go back.

"It's my house."

"It's a rental!"

"But it's my _house_, Chris!" Lance pulled back. "I can't -- I brought people in there. I took you in there. It was supposed to be safe."

"So now you're what, you're in a pissing contest with the house? Jesus." Chris pushed a hand through his hair, and shook his head. "It's going to win, Lance, I'm sorry, but it can suspend the laws of physics. You need to take a dive on this one."

"I just need to look it in the face. Just once."

"God, you're so fucking stubborn."

Lance didn't argue. After a second, Chris put his head on Lance's shoulder and sighed. "I'm going with you."

"Yep." Lance hugged Chris a little tighter, thinking _that's not gonna happen_. "I kinda figured."

Justin got there first. JC was closest, but Justin drove faster. JC  
pulled in right behind Justin's Escalade and the two of them came up to  
Chris's car just as the sun peeked up over the horizon. Chris jumped out  
and grabbed Justin while Lance rolled his eyes. He climbed out and leaned up against the car; JC stretched and yawned and fell against the door beside him.

"So," JC said. "Was it scary?"

Lance shrugged. "I don't know. I think I'm in shock. I can't feel my feet."

"It's fucking cold out here, dawg. Why didn't you wait inside?"

"Haunted," Lance said, slowly and clearly. "I told you on the phone."

JC blinked. "Oh. I, um. I guess I thought you were speaking metaphorically."

"Then why'd you think it would be scary?"

"Dude, I was talking about macking on Chris."

"What--? I mean, I -- wait. How did you--"

JC grinned. "Your lips are all puffy. And he's the only one here."

Lance could feel his cheeks starting to glow. "If you say anything -- I mean _anything_ to Justin or Joey --"

"Hey, I am the soul of discretion, man." JC mimed locking up his lips, then throwing away the key.

"You better be," Lance muttered.

"Mmmm-mm-mmmm. Mmm m?"

Lance shoved at JC with his shoulder. "Cut it out."

JC shoved back, and they stood there companionably in the cold, watching Chris and Justin watch the sunrise from where they sat on the walk. Their heads were close together, and Lance could hear the rise and fall of their voices, but not the words. The early sun caught the spikes of Chris's hair, warmed his skin. Justin was all golden, but Chris was pale and sharp-edged and beautiful.

"So," JC said softly, leaning his head on Lance's shoulder. "Was it scary?"

Lance let out a pent up breath and smiled, warmth twisting through his chest. "You have no idea, C," he said. "You have no idea."

  
   


* * *

  
   


After a brief conference, during which Justin had to be physically restrained from running into the house to see if Lance's bedroom was still there and during which JC kept making completely unsubtle cow-eyes at Lance while pointing gleefully at Chris, they decided that the best thing would be to call Joey. Joey would be pissed if anything happened and they hadn't warned him. He never minded when they got together in twos and threes but if he didn't get called in for group stuff, there was just no living with him after.

Not that Lance had a lot of faith in 'after'. Lights flickered off and on in his upstairs windows, sometimes orange, sometimes a freaky green. Strange sounds bled outward from the walls of his house, high notes and low and a soundless, bone-shaking hum.

He was pretty sure his house was going to eat him. He was so sure that when Joey said, "I'll be on the next plane out," Lance said "Uh-uh, sorry, no, no way, no how."

"You go in there without me, Lance, you better hope that house does eat you because I will kick your ass so far up between your shoulderblades you'll be taking your meals in backwards for the rest of your sorry, miserable life."

Lance blinked at his phone. "Damn, Joey."

"I mean it, I'll be there tonight. You guys just go hang at Justin's or something, we'll have dinner, we'll get a good night's sleep and go see what's going on in the morning."

"You have to think about Briahna. You have a kid, remember? And a wife, who will kick my ass if I let you do anything dangerous. No offense, but she scares me a hell of a lot more than you do."

"I know things, Lance. I know things that would tarnish the Bass family name for seven generations to come. I know things that would make your mother cry, and for some of them I have video tape."

"That's cold. That's so fucking cold, Joey. What kind of example are you providing for your little girl?"

"Go to Justin's and wait."

Lance sighed. "Call me when you have a flight number."

  
   


* * *

  
   


They did go crash for a little while at Justin's. Lance freaked out a bit, just a bit, crossing over the threshold, but once he got inside he was fine. There was a sweet sense of emptiness in his chest where a solid knot of tension had lived for the last few weeks. It let him sleep, his head tucked against Chris's shoulder.

When the shadows got long and the light slanted down through the western windows, they climbed back into the two cars and drove back to Lance's. JC and Justin drove down to the Starbucks at the end of the street while Chris and Lance pulled into the very end of the driveway. They sat on the hood of Lance's car and let the last of the sun soak into them. All the windows of Lance's house were dark now, dark as the very darkest night.

"Did you tell him not to come here first?"

"I told him." Lance leaned back against his windshield and stared up at the sky.

"You told him to meet us at Justin's?"

"Yep."

Chris bounced, moving the whole car. "And we're here instead of at Justin's because...?"

"Because we don't trust Joey as far as my mama could throw him."

"That ain't far," Chris said, leaning back and nodding his agreement. "But I don't think I'd want to go sayin' that to her."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Joey showed up, glaring at them through the windshield of his rented Landrover, just as the sun was touching the horizon. He climbed out with a slurpee the size of his own head in one hand and a sheaf of printouts fluttering in the other. "I did some research on the plane --"

He started to say something, then stared at the house out of huge, scared eyes. "What the fuck is that noise?"

"A rental home with serious anger management issues." Chris hopped off the car and hugged Joey hard. "Try not to look at it. It completely creeps me out."

"No shit," Joey said. He never took his eyes off of it. "I think it's moving."

"You're supposed to be at Justin's." Chris shook his finger at Joey and grabbed his chin, turning him away. "Justin doesn't live here. _Lance_ lives here. You're in the wrong place, man."

Joey's eyes cleared; he shook his head and grinned. "I know!"

Lance shoved in between them. "Joey."

"Hey, kiddo." Joey put his arm around Lance comfortingly, in the way that he did only when he had very very bad news. Every muscle in Lance's back went tense.

"What?"

"Just brace yourself," Joey said calmly. "You're really not gonna believe this."

Lance rubbed at his eyes. "Oh, I believe it. Just lay it out for me."

"I made some calls, talked to your realtor -- you need a new realtor, by the way -- talked to the owner, and I looked around some on the web, and...okay. The thing is, your house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground."

Chris blinked. "Ancient Indians? In LA?"

"Dude, in the beginning, there was not LA. Some other stuff happened before that."

Chris gave Joey a shove, and Joey shoved back. "There weren't any Indians in Lance's bedroom," Chris said. "Try again."

"No, man, I'm serious." Joey waved his papers under Lance's nose. "I got it straight from the horse's mouth. The owner got run out of it years back and hasn't been able to unload it yet, so he's just been renting it out. Turns out the longest anybody's ever lived in it is about four months."

"Ancient Indian burial ground." Lance groaned and closed his eyes. "Of _course_ it is."

The hum of an engine distracted them, and a second later JC and Justin pulled up into the drive. JC flew at Joey and hugged him until his face turned purple. Justin handed off coffee, hazelnut latte for Chris and a white chocolate mocha for Lance, then climbed up Joey's back and kissed him on top of the head. "We didn't get you anything," he said, clutching at Joey's shoulders. "You can have my macchiato if you want."

Joey staggered, almost went down, but caught himself on the roof of the car. "Hi," he gasped. "C. Can't breathe."

"Oh!" JC let go, grinning hugely. "Sorry, man. Just. Hey!"

Justin stayed where he was. "What's up? I thought you were going to my house."

"You're the only one," Lance muttered.

"I was just coming by to get the lay of the land. Justin, dude, let go of my ears -- thank you." Joey dumped Justin off on the ground, and shook his arms out.

"Ow," Justin muttered from the grass. "That was my head."

Joey took a few steps closer to the house. "It doesn't look that scary, from the outside."

"Wait till you meet the new interior decorator," Chris muttered. "It's amazing what he can do with a little ectoplasm and non-Euclidean geometry." His eyes widened when everybody turned to stare at him. "What?"

Lance shook his head. "Okay, look, we're wandering from the point. Joey, did you find out anything we can do? I mean." He waved helplessly at window to his office, which had started to swirl with an oily, iridescent light. "All my stuff is in there."

"Too bad." Joey patted Lance's shoulder gently. "All you can do is get your stuff and go. Otherwise, it says here, some very bad shit will go down. Like, one guy ended up in a mental institution. Nothing but jello since the last time you saw your real hair color."

"What's going on?" JC poked at Joey's stomach. "We missed the good stuff. What, what -- hey." He grinned, and sang, "What's goooooin' on..."

"Here's the weird part, though," Joey said. "According to legend, all non-Indians get, you know, crazy-fied. They go totally wacko, sometimes in just a few days. But if an Indian of the true blood returns to claim the land, the land itself will destroy all interlopers, along with all evidence of their greed."

Justin stared. "You got all that off the internet?"

"It's called research," Joey said loftily.

"Normal people just google up their names, man."

"Okay." Chris leaned down to peer at Joey's printouts. "So, right, Lance lives on an Indian burial ground. But whatever this thing is, it ain't driving him crazy. Not any more than usual, anyway. So far, it's just doing some extremely extensive remodeling."

"Yeah," Lance said. "Like, now I have a basement in Hell."

"The question is, where does that leave us?" Chris shook his head. "What are we missing?"

Lance cleared his throat, and raised his hand.

Chris narrowed his eyes. "Yes, _Lansten_?"

"I, um. Well. It's just something my Dad told me about when I was a kid, but. I might, possibly, have some Indian blood in my family tree." He stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. The story was kind of embarrassing, involving his great-grandmother, a missing horse, and a few nights spent getting "rescued" without a chaperone.

Chris closed his eyes. "Now," he said, his hands clenching into fists. "_Now_ you tell us."

"What kind of Indians, Lance?" Justin bounced on the balls of his feet. "That's so cool. I bet you're an Apache. Those are nasty. I bet their ghosts eat other tribes' ghosts for breakfast."

"What kind?" Joey slapped Justin on the back of the head, frowning. "Does it matter what kind? Is there some kind of Indian tribe that produces friendly, happy ghosts?"

"Hey, I was just asking!"

"Indian ghosts are always bad news. It's like a cosmic law, Justin. Did you _never_ attend summer camp?"

JC frowned. "Dude, don't be such a hater. You wouldn't be very happy either if Century 21 built an A-frame on top of your mama."

Every window in the house lit up, a glare of orange washing over the lawn from every pane. Something slammed against the front door so hard the hinges rattled. The wood bulged outward like putty, then settled back into its frame.

"Okay, that's it," Chris snapped, glaring at the living room window. "If you guys are done with the pre-game show, I think I have a plan."

  
   


* * *

  
   


Justin didn't want to go in ("cuz my skinny white ass has 'interloper' written all over it, yo,") and JC and Joey seemed to feel pretty much the same. They didn't say it, but they shuffled their feet and kind of leeched onto each other and wouldn't look Lance in the eye. Chris looked scared out of his mind but he wanted to go, he said, for moral support.

"No way," Lance said. "I'm just going into the foyer. I politely but firmly renounce my blood claim on the land, and then we all run away."

Chris looked skeptical, which was pretty rich considering it was his dumb plan to start with. "Just don't do anything stupid. You can look it in the face, or whatever your manly pride demands, from the threshold."

"It's 'cause he didn't get to go into space," Justin said. "This is just way overcompensating, if you ask me."

"You'll see me the whole time," Lance promised Chris through gritted teeth. "Anyway, I'm still wearing fifty feet of rope."

They tied it off to the Landrover's bumper. Chris stood right by Lance's side in front of the door, holding his hand. The house was oppressively silent now, all the windows dark. Lance had a feeling it was waiting.

Behind them, JC whispered, "They're so cute like that" and Joey shushed him. Chris glanced over at Lance, smirked, and rolled his eyes.

Lance took a breath. He squeezed Chris's hand just once, let go, and opened the door.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Blackness, so sudden and thick and startling that Lance almost fell through.

Chris did fall, the vortex of wind ripping at his clothes and sucking him inward. Justin dove after him and caught the leg of his pants, yelling over the roar and twist of wind that spiraled down into the darkness. Joey grabbed Justin, and JC grabbed Joey and Lance. Everybody pulled, and Chris came back out into the dying sunlight, screaming and kicking and cussing so fast and hard it sounded foreign.

Lance grabbed on to Chris the second he was on solid ground and hung on, rolling them back from the door. Wind howled down into it, sucked into it, and the bushes bowed inward in the gust, the trees leaned close to the house.

"Close it!" Joey shouted, still hanging onto Justin with all his strength, "Close it, close it!" and Lance got a hand on JC's shirt and they all pulled, and pulled, and Justin came out of the dark with the doorknob somehow still in his hand, and pulled the door shut.

They rolled clear. Lance came up from the ground with one hand fisted in Chris's collar and the other in the back of JC's shirt.

"I renounce my claim, damn it!" Lance shouted over his shoulder. He pushed Chris and JC forward, away from the house. Justin and Joey were right behind them.

The house shattered the night with a final, outraged roar of hunger and defiance.

They ran.

  
   


* * *

  
   


Behind, in the depths of the empty house, something groaned. Something snapped. The windows exploded outward and everything started to collapse.

  
   


* * *

  
   


"Fuck," Justin gasped, clinging like a leech to Chris's side where they had fallen. "Y'all say it's just the choreography, but I got _moves_."

"You got moves, kid," Chris said, meeting Lance's eyes over Justin's head. He hugged Justin close, till neither of them could breathe. "You got moves."

  
   


* * *

  
   


They stood on the far side of the street and watched, Chris pale and shaking and plastered to Lance's side. Justin clutched at Chris, bleeding from a cut on his cheek where Chris had kicked him. JC and Joey were right behind them, so close together they were almost in each other's clothes.

The roof buckled at the center. It was like a cable running from the highest point and deep down into the ground were being pulled taut. The roof caved and the walls crashed in and got sucked down. It happened in slow motion, accompanied by the deep, pained groan of tortured wood and metal. Lance felt it in his bones when the foundation snapped. Seconds later, it was gone.

Above them, the sky darkened and curdled. Thunder rumbled from the hills behind the lot where the house used to stand.

Rain washed over them in sheets, drenching the hole the house had ripped into the earth. Puddles formed, grew, joined.

"That," Joey said behind him, "is one helluva dark tarn."

"What's that from?" Justin piped up. "I've heard that somewhere."

JC ruffled the dark scruff of Justin's hair. "Dawg, you need to get you some literature."

Chris tightened his arm around Lance's waist; Lance could feel his heartbeat, pounding against his own chest. He sighed, and stroked his fingers gently through Chris's hair.

Chris looked up. "You okay?"

"I'm so not getting my deposit back."

JC threw his head back and laughed; Lance grinned at him, and the next second he was laughing, too. Chris smiled and hummed under his breath and when Lance was through, he said, "You know, you could come stay at my place."

"Chris, you don't have a place here. Your place is a hotel."

Chris shrugged. "I don't own a single Pink Floyd record."

Lance nodded slowly. "You make a good point."

"Damn straight."

"Not that straight," Lance said, stroking Chris's side softly underneath the wet t-shirt. He pressed his face into the curve of Chris's neck and grinned.

"I guess," Chris said grudgingly, "I guess, if you insist on LA, I could find us a place."

"I could call my guy." Lance fished in his pocket for his cell phone, just as all four of the others shouted,

"NO!"

Lance blinked. Four sets of panicked eyes met his, wide and staring. "No?"

Chris put both of his hands over Lance's hands. Then he took Lance's cell phone out of his hands and turned and threw it, hard as he could, into the crater.

"Hey!"

"Out of love, man," Chris said. He leaned over and kissed Lance hard, right on the mouth. "Only out of love."

Lance's eyes went wide as he let himself be kissed. A second later they drifted shut. Many many seconds after that Lance pulled back, his fingers stroking over his own lips in surprise. "That was. Um. But. Our house."

"We'll find one," Chris said, patting Lance on the shoulder.

"But. My guy?"

Justin shook his head at both of them and flipped open his phone. "No offense, Lance, but I think you better use _my_ guy."


End file.
